The wish to lead out one's lover must be a tribal feeling; the wish to be seen as loved is part of one's self-respect.

Almost everybody wore a curious limpidity of expression, like newborn babies or souls just after death. Dazed but curiously dignified.... after a criseof hysterical revulsion and tiredness, I passed beyondand became entered by a rather sublime feeling.

When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it.

The child lives in the book; but just as much the book lives in the child.

All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.

There's something so showy about desperation, it takes hard wits to see it's a grandiose form of funk.

Makes of men date, like makes of car.